Overview of LANDFIRE outputs for the Ataya Region
Introduction to process
Principles 6 & 9 of the US Forest Stewardship Council Standards call for, among other things, a look at ecosystems past and present across the landscape, plus an assessment of historical vs. current succession classes. This work can be aided by LANDFIRE data and models, as LANDFIRE produces applicable datasets that cover ‘all lands’ in the US. For example, LANDFIRE Produces a dataset called ‘Biophysical Settings’ (BpS) that essentially represents the ‘habitat envelop’ for the various ecosystems of the US. The BpS spatial data is accompanied by descriptions and models that capture historical disturbance regimes and estimate how much of each succession class (per BpS) would have been on the landscape historically (termed ‘reference conditions’). Typically, analysts compare these estimated succession class amounts past and present per BpS. Additionally, the LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) can be used to characterize the landscape currently.
In a review of the base datasets for the Ataya project area, experts noted a relative over-mapping of ‘mesic’ ecosystems in the BpS data, and that the EVT data not only captured current conditions relatively well, but also captured what is locally known about the historical landscape. Based on this feedback, Sarah Hagen, Spatial Ecologist with The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) LANDFIRE team conducted the GIS and data wrangling steps necessary to create and implement a custom process that uses the EVT data as the ‘habitat envelop’ of each ecosystem and the reference conditions from the BpS products to assess past vs. current amounts of succession classes. Randy Swaty (TNC’s LANDFIRE team) wrote up these results and created the charts. Reviewed by Jim Smith (TNC’s LANDFIRE team).
Current Landscape
LANDFIRE’s Existing Vegetation Type, Cover and Height datasets describe current vegetation conditions.
- Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) - represents the current distribution of the terrestrial ecological systems classification, developed by NatureServe for the western hemisphere, through 2016.
- Existing Vegetation Cover (EVC) - represents the vertically projected percent cover of the live canopy layer for a 30-m cell.
- Existing Vegetation Height (EVH) - represents the average height of the dominant vegetation for a 30-m cell.
Read more about LANDFIRE Vegetation Products
Most Prevalent Existing Vegetation Types
Below we map and chart the top 6 EVTs, with the plantation and ruderal forest type lumped together. These types cumulatively add up to more than 95% of the landscape.
Existing Vegetation Cover
The Existing Vegetation Cover (EVC) map is a visual representation of EVC classifications across the subregion. The chart below the map provides a breakdown of each vegetation cover classification and their relative distribution across the forest.